


Moral Dilemma

by LonelyThursday



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Mostly Dialogue, Origin Story, Post-Episode: Dealing with INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS, but it's not Patton, something that i think counts as body horror, sorta unsympathetic Morality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:28:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21609817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonelyThursday/pseuds/LonelyThursday
Summary: Where did the 'Dark Sides' come from?There used to be five sides: Morality, Creativity, Curiosity, Caution, and Emotion.But Morality didn't like his struggle between 'right' and 'wrong', so removed his 'bad' parts.And that was just the start
Comments: 3
Kudos: 79





	Moral Dilemma

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic in this fandom so don't hate on me. I've only been here for like two weeks

“Where did the Dark Sides come from?” Thomas asks one day. Roman and Logan exchange looks, while Virgil and Patton avoid eye contact. 

“To best answer that question, Thomas,” Logan says. “It might be best to look at the origins of all of the Sides.”

“There used to be five sides,” Roman begins. “Morality, Creativity, Curiosity, Caution, and Emotion.

“They came in to being naturally. One day, they wouldn’t exist, and the next they would emerge from the hazy corners of your mind.”

“Emotion came first,” Logan continues. “Followed by Caution, then Morality, then Curiosity, and then Creativity. Even though they were older, Emotion and Caution allowed Morality to lead; Emotion did so because he had wanted to appease everyone, and Caution did so because he wanted to avoid conflict.”

“Morality was not an easy going leader,” Roman picks the story back up. “He held everyone to a high standard... especially himself.

“One day, he realized that he had been having an inner conflict between right and wrong.”

“As Morality,” Logan explains. “It was his job to know the difference, though he was not meant to be only one or the other.”

“But this struggle between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ bothered Morality.” Roman continues. “He couldn’t be _‘wrong’,_ he held himself to a higher standard than that. He had to be only _‘right’,_ so he split himself. He took all the ‘wrongness’ and made a new Side out of it: Deceit. 

“Morality made Deceit to be everything he didn’t want from himself, he labeled Deceit as a ‘Dark Side’ and cast him out. He was not one of the five, he was ‘bad’, _‘wrong’,_ and would be treated as such. Deceit slunk himself into the background. 

“A few years passed, and more background Sides emerged, but the five main Sides continued on much as they had before, except now there were _‘others’_ creeping around the fringes; one of which who directly opposed one of the Sides. One day, Morality noticed that Creativity,” Roman pauses, overcome by memories of his own... separation. “Wasn’t always ‘right’ and ‘moral’, sometimes he would have ideas that were _‘dark’,_ and _‘wrong’._ ” Roman looks down for a moment, to collect himself before continuing. 

“So he took Creativity, and he split him. It wasn’t like it was for himself and Deceit, it wasn’t a voluntary split, it hurt Creativity, and the two new Sides screamed and begged to be put back together, but Morality refused. He gave the ‘bad’ Creativity to Deceit, and told him to take him wherever it was that Deceit and the others lived. He said that that Creativity was a ‘Dark Side’, and couldn’t stay with the ‘Light Sides’ - the Sides that were _‘right’,_ and _‘good’._

“By now, the other Sides were growing uncomfortable with Morality’s habit of splitting the ‘badness’ out of a Side and sending it away, but they couldn’t do anything. Morality was strong, and he was in charge. The others couldn’t do anything to stop him. 

“Emotion tried. After Morality split Creativity, he tried to get him to put them back together like they wanted, but Morality refused. He said that Thomas - you - didn’t need the ‘bad’ thoughts, that you could get along just fine with only the ‘good’ ones. Emotion tried to push the issue, but Morality just threatened to split him too, so Emotion backed off. 

“Of course it didn’t take long for Morality to decide that some of Emotion wasn’t ‘good’. He tried to split Emotion, like he had himself and Creativity, but Emotion didn’t split as cleanly, defining ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Emotion wasn’t as easy as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Morality or Creativity had been. The two halves of Emotion were unstable, and began to fuse back together naturally. Morality didn’t like that, and tried to split them again, mid-fuse, but he was sloppy that time, he didn’t split Emotion like had planned to. He ended up with one Emotion that was relatively stable, though he still contained some ‘bad’ Emotion, and one Emotion that was so unstable that he split again, involuntarily. One split became Rage, and the other, too weak to survive, ended up fusing with the first Side he touched, Caution. Rage was somehow stable enough to survive as his own Side, and Caution became Anxiety.”

Virgil ducks his head in shame. He’d replaced Caution, became a worse version of him, a more extreme version. 

“Morality was disgusted by Rage and Anxiety, and had Deceit take them away too. He wasn’t too happy about the stable Emotion either, but Logic informed him that if he tried splitting Emotion again, he might end up with the same result - or worse: no Emotion at all. And so, Morality allowed Emotion to stay. 

“The ‘good’ Emotion had seemed stable at first, a few concerning mood swings here and there, but other than that, he’d been stable; until Anxiety showed up one day, unexpectedly. 

“Anxiety, you see, was a fusion between a full Side, and a partial Side, as such, he was stronger than any other Side.”

“Just to be clear on where we are in the story,” Logan interrupts. “At this point, Morality, Deceit, Roman, Remus, Emotion, and Rage are all splits of full Sides, I - Logic - am the only full Side, and Anxiety is about one and a quarter Sides.”

“Yes, thank you, Logan. Now, as I was saying; Anxiety was the strongest side, and as such, Deceit could not hide him as he could the other ‘Dark Sides’, and Morality could not block him. 

“When Anxiety showed up, he set what was left of Emotion off into an episode which destabilized him, and, much as the other partial Emotion had with Caution, he fused with the first Side he touched: Morality.”

“That’s how Patton came to be.” Logan says. “He is your morality, that’s true, but he’s not the _same_ Morality who had split three Sides, or the one who had banished the ‘bad’ products. Similarly, he wasn’t able to put the Sides back together again, or separate the fragment of Emotion from Caution.”

“Wow, the old Morality sounds like a real bad guy.” Thomas says. 

“On the contrary, he was the epitome of virtue.” Logan answers. “What made him the ‘bad guy’, as you put it, was his complete lack of emotions. To him, there was the right thing to do, and the wrong thing to do, but there was not any thought of how the ‘right thing’ could hurt others.”

“That’s the difference between Patton and the old Morality,” Roman says. “Patton considers how people feel when deciding what’s ‘right’ and what’s ‘wrong’.”

“So the ‘Dark Sides’ came from all of you.” Thomas realizes. “You were all a mix of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ until Morality decided to separate you.”

“That’s right, kiddo,” Patton says, lifting his head for the first time since the conversation began. “Everyone is a mix of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and that’s good, it’s what makes you human. If the old Morality had destroyed Deceit, and Remus, and the others, then you wouldn’t be who you are today: a good, caring person.”

“Thanks, Pat,” Thomas says. “But I have another question: you said in the beginning there was Curiosity, but later you said it was Logic, how did Logan go from Curiosity to Logic?”

“Unlike Caution’s transition to Anxiety, or Roman’s transition to being half of Creativity, I evolved naturally.” Logan explains. “As you grew older, I naturally transitioned to Logic. As you learned about the world around you, you stopped needing to be curious about it, and started to figure out how it worked, logically. I am the same Side I was in the beginning, just older and more experienced.”

“I guess that makes sense. One more question, though: how come Morality never split Logan or Caution?”

“Easy,” Logan once again takes the question. “There is no ‘bad’ logic or ‘good’ logic, logic is logic. Morality couldn’t find anything reprehensible about me. Similarly, there was no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in Caution, he just was.”

“I’m bad caution,” Virgil whispers under his breath, though it’s still loud enough for everyone to hear him. 

“Virgil,” Thomas says. 

“I will _fight_ you!” Patton threatens, audibly fighting tears.

“I disagree,” Logan says. “You are more of a driving force in making Thomas be productive than Caution ever was.”

“I agree with the Microsoft Nerd,” Roman declares loudly. “Caution was much too much of a pushover without that bit of Emotion that you have. He warned of dangers, but when he was ignored he just gave up, but _you,_ Virgil, you make yourself _known_ when you have a concern, and if we were to ignore you, then you would just yell louder.”

“Indeed,” Logan agrees. “Caution was effective at pointing out things that could go wrong in any given situation, but he lacked the fear to properly care about whether or not anyone listened to what he said. Much like Emotion keeps Morality from going too far, Emotion allows Caution - or rather, you, Anxiety - to make himself be heeded.”

“See, kiddo, you’re not worse! You’re an improvement!” Virgil actually does crack a smile at that. 

“Thanks, Patton.”

“Anytime, kiddo.”

**Author's Note:**

> let me know if I need to tag anything else


End file.
